Lostlander

by Dean F. Wilson

  Contents

  1 – LOST

  2 – PAINTING A POSTER

  3 – PYRE

  4 – RELIABLY DEAD

  5 – ONE MAN, FIVE WOLVES

  6 – BELIEVER

  7 – NOT A LEG TO STAND ON

  8 – CANINES AND CANYONS

  9 – THE MONSTERS OF NOTHINGNESS

  10 – THE LAND

  11 – THE SHIFTING GRAVEYARD

  12 – THE LOST TRIBE

  13 – ELECTRIC

  14 – PROSPECTOR

  15 – CHASING RATS

  16 – DENFIGHTER

  17 – PLUM

  18 – BEFORE THEY WERE LOST

  19 – WHEN THEY WERE TAKEN

  20 – HOW HE ESCAPED

  21 – FINDING YOUR PLACE

  22 – MAKING IT HOME

  23 – COPPER TUMBLEWEED

  24 – MARBLES

  25 – OUT OF WATER

  26 – THE ARENA ABOVE

  27 – THE ARENA BELOW

  28 – THE BITS LEFT BEHIND

  29 – A SMALLER KIND OF HUNT

  30 – THE WRECKING BALL

  31 – THE HAMSTER WHEEL

  32 – THE WHEEL OF LIFE AND DEATH

  33 – THE BACK DOOR GUARD

  34 – THE CELLAR

  35 – FOUND

  36 – THE LONG LADDER

  37 – EXPERIMENT X

  38 – FREE TO FALL

  39 – EXPERIMENT NOX

  40 – FLOOD

  41 – BACKUP

  42 – THE MAN WITH THE SILVER MANE

  43 – PROMISED PORTALS

  44 – GOING HOME

  45 – THE LONG ROAD SOUTH

  46 – FAMILIAR SANDS

  LOSTLANDER

  A COILHUNTER CHRONICLES NOVEL

  DEAN F. WILSON

  1 – LOST

  The Coilhunter awoke in the desert. That wasn't the strange part. The desert went on for miles. If you didn't wake there, chances are you were dead. He'd gotten to know those grains, gotten to make a temporary ally of the wind and a permanent enemy of the sun. Yet here, things were different. The grains were different, a little darker than before. The caress of the wind was different too. This was a part of the Wild North he'd never been to, and he had no memory of how he got there.

   He tried to stand, but his legs buckled. So, he just sat there for a moment, gathering his thoughts together. He had a dozen questions fighting to the front, and not a single answer. He had the so-called anaesthesia of the mind. He was lucky he even remembered who he was, that he knew his name was Nathaniel Osley Xander, that he knew he was Nox. But that memory brought back other, painful ones—yet nothing of this place.

   “Well, old boy,” he rasped. “Seems you're lost.” The grit of his voice was only matched by the grit in his eyes, sandpapering his vision. The sand had a way of getting everywhere. Normally he got across it in his trusty monowheel, but he couldn't see the vehicle nearby. He was alone. That was how it usually was, but now he felt it more than ever. Something was off.

   He sipped from his water canister. The liquid almost dried on his tongue before it had a chance to waterfall down his throat. It was amazing what a few drops could do, how it could bring you back from the brink, how it could work its magic on your body and give you a little clarity of mind. But there could've been a lake there, and he'd have still not known where he was. Why, if there was a lake there, then he sure as hell wasn't anywhere he'd been before.

   The water did one thing though: as he swamped it down, it made him aware of something around his neck. He tugged at it with his gloved fingers, feeling a metal collar. It was thick, with many notches and ridges. And it was tight. Tight enough to dig into his adam's apple. Tight enough to make him feel each and every gulp.

   There was no obvious way to remove it, not even when Nox took a screwdriver from the small box of tools on his belt and shoved it between the metal and flesh. The collar didn't bend or budge. All he did was leave a red mark on his throat, just another one to join the sun's lashes.

   He cast the screwdriver away in frustration, then realised his error and scrambled to find it again. The sand would bury that if he wasn't looking, like it'd bury him if he wasn't moving. Right now all he could do was sit or crawl, and ponder about this unusual predicament. The feeling was starting to return to his legs, but it didn't return quick. Night would return quicker, and while it was often better than day, it was only better if you could start a fire. Nox hated the fire, and hated more that he needed it. To him, it was like a slave needing the whip. That just reminded him of the collar again, of the feeling like he wasn't quite a man now, but a dog—and a stray one at that.

   “Keep it together, Nox,” he told himself. Of course, he couldn't help but think that talking to himself meant he wasn't keeping it together at all. He'd faced worse things than this before. He'd faced bigger threats. Yet he couldn't shake a fear in his gut, the kind of fear he usually instilled in others, in the conmen and criminals of the Wild North.

   He looked for clues in the land around him, that ever-shifting, ever-unreliable land. It was as bad as the fire and the sun. The sooner you learned that the land didn't like you, the better. But then, if the land stood on you, wouldn't you be unhappy? Maybe the folk that walked it were just another shackle, just another collar made of flesh.

   There were no answers in the grains, not the subtle kind, and definitely not the kind some tribesfolk claimed to see, the so-called grainreading, where the sand formed itself into shapes and spelled out letters. If it'd do that for him, you can damn well bet that it wouldn't spell anything nice.

   “Try to remember,” he said. He racked his brain for the pieces the land wouldn't give him. He stared down the alleys of the mind, hoping to find something he'd missed. It was all a haze, like the shimmer on the horizon, which masked the endless, rolling dunes. He could try to journey out there, but there was no knowing where “there” was, not if he didn't know where “here” was either.

   Then something caught in the monowheel of his mind. It jammed there, making him fixate on it. He saw a man with long, silver hair standing over him, putting the collar on. The man's eyes seemed to penetrate him, seemed to freeze every part of him, seemed to see right into his soul, where the fire burned. It was a stare that could topple plateaus, could make giants tremble. It was a look that could make a lawman like Nox feel like he was a criminal.

   Still not enough, the man had said, and his voice was just as powerful, just as hypnotic. He'd said it to himself, because he paid little heed to Nox, just like he paid little heed to the dozens of other collared folk in the room. The man's frustration was palpable, contagious even. It was as if those feelings were Nox's too.

   Then the question came: Why didn't you fight? the Coilhunter pondered. Why did you just lie there? He could see himself looking down past the mask on his face, past the tubes leading to the oxygen tank on his back, past the self-given sheriff's badge on his chest, down to his holstered pistols. Why didn't he take them? There were only more questions—and that silent, uncooperative land.

   The sun tunnelled through the clouds, shining its scalding spotlight on him, but shining nothing on the events of the past few days. It was a violent world, so it was a violent sun. Maybe that was how that great yellow orb survived. But how had Nox survived? How had he escaped? A dozen more questions crowded in, like the crowd of shackled people, all staring up like him, dumbfounded. Who could have this power? Who was the owner of all these collared dogs?

  2 – PAINTING A POSTER

  The Coilhunter was used to unanswered questions. Normally he was doing the asking, and when the voice of his mouth didn't do it, he'd use the voice of his gun. The criminals spilled the beans more often than not, convict
ing those folk the lawless lands said couldn't be convicted. But there was no one here to intimidate, no one here to interrogate. He had to answer his own questions, and right now he just had a six-shooter full of blanks.

   And you'd go mad that way, trying to answer the unanswerable. He'd almost gone there when he searched for the killer of his family, back five years ago. The only thing that kept him sane was the hunt for justice. It was still keeping him sane, though undoubtedly many thought he'd well and truly cracked. The things he made didn't help his image, though they helped his fight. His gizmos. His gadgets. He still had some of them strapped to his belt. It didn't make any sense why he still had them. Those were the first things you'd take if you captured him. You wouldn't try to cage the Coilhunter and keep him armed. Yet that's just what the Man with the Silver Mane did.

   “I'll find you,” he said to that phantom image, like he said to the shadow of his family's killer. He'd made good on that promise, and he already had a head start on this one. Why, he already had a face for the Wanted poster. It wouldn't pay in coils, sure enough, but there was another currency that sustained the Coilhunter even more: vengeance. He'd had his wage of that and more.

   He struggled to his feet again, taking that first little step of the hunt. It always started small, more in the mind than the flesh. But once he knew he wouldn't topple over, he pulled up a bigger bucket of conviction from those deep, dark wells of strength buried within him.

   He started off, choosing a direction and sticking with it, even though he didn't know where it'd go. He used the compass of the sun to guide him, a momentary truce with that scalding boulder in the sky. He headed south, reasoning that if he were still in the Wild North—which was just guesswork at this point—then the only way to get to the parts of it he knew, and civilisation far south, was to go in the opposite direction. But reason was a fickle thing in the desert. The land scoffed at it. The sun derided it. The wind eroded the bones of the reasonable just as easily as the irrational.

   He picked up the pace as the sun dipped on his right, not stopping for food, not halting for rest. He'd slept a lot lately, it seemed. Now was the time for waking, and the time for walking. Now was the time for killing. He didn't know for certain what the Man with the Silver Mane did, but he knew it was wrong. That was about all he knew. He knew it in his gut like he knew the Northfolk. And he could sure as hell bet this silver-haired fellow wasn't from the Wild North.

   As he walked, he painted that poster in his mind a little clearer. He filled in the details around those crystal eyes, those shifting caverns of jade and sapphire. How could a man's eyes seem so different every time you stared at them? No matter. Nox wouldn't let that stop him pinning up that poster, wouldn't let it stop him etching in those damning words: Dead or Not Alive.

  3 – PYRE

  Nox kept going, until his old aches were replaced by new ones. He watched the sun die from the corner of his eye, knowing it'd be back for him soon enough. Unlike it, you never came back. The chill seized him pretty quick. Even his brisk march wasn't enough to fend off the cold. He was forced to stop and start a fire.

   He assembled the dried-up desert brush he'd collected on his way south and gave it a proper funeral. The pyre warmed his body, but his soul was still cold, like it was still frozen from the Man with the Silver Mane's icicle stare. As the bristles burned, he felt a connection to that man, felt his hand around his neck, where the collar was. Yet, the closer he got to the fire, the less he felt it. He wasn't sure if that was just comfort—or something else.

   The night was eerily quiet. He couldn't hear the howls of far-off coyotes, couldn't hear the hoots of owls or the screech of hawks. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, which brought to mind that other fire, the one that competed with the ice inside his soul.

   He tried to sleep, but the night was as restless as he was. Every time the fire burned low, he felt the darkness sneak in to smother him. He saw the watchful, crystal eyes. The only way to stamp them out, to dull their grasping stare, was to make the fire a little fiercer. He hated that the fire was even more a friend now, because it remained an enemy in his dreams.

   When day broke, he found himself poking at the embers, his mind groggy. He thought maybe he whispered a name. Emma. Oh, how he'd whispered that so many nights before. The loneliness felt stronger now. He wasn't even sure what day it was. He hoped it wasn't Monday. That was their day. He couldn't journey to them if he didn't know where he was. By rights, he couldn't journey to them at all, not where they were now—not until he finished his work here, while there was still so much to clean up in the Wild North.

   He ventured out, keeping that southern path, even when the sun tried to blind him as it too travelled south. He kept the brim of his hat down, fending off the glare and fighting off the periodic sandstorms. He chased the horizon, which was like a fleeing criminal. The desert shrunk as he approached a dune, but it expanded again when he clambered up. The spirits of the sand were playing accordion with his eyes. The tribesfolk had a name for that too: the silent music of the sand. Some even said it was the breathing of the earth. Well, it was no surprise that there was grit in its lungs.

   Then he halted, instinctively. His hand hovered, ready to draw. A thousand practice shots, and two thousand practised kills, all narrowed down into a tingle—into a twitch. His eyes scouted the area ahead of him, mapping it out, marking the best place to run, the better place to roll. He rehearsed his routine in his mind, where he'd tumble if they came from behind him, when he'd feint, and when he'd fire.

   Then he caught it, like the eagle catches its prey. His eyes settled on the body of a fallen animal far off, nestled by a cactus ridge. Maybe it had tried those desert fruit for water. Or maybe it just wanted to die in the shade. You couldn't blame the dying for clinging to a little bit of comfort.

   He approached it cautiously, because his gut didn't just say caution—it screamed it loud and clear. This was the first creature, besides himself, that he'd seen out here. That had to mean something.

   And it did.

   When he came close enough to see, he saw it was a horse. And not just any horse. It was one he knew.

   It was Old Reliable.

  4 – RELIABLY DEAD

  Boy, that was a sight. That old sorrel was half-dead, and the half that wasn't, well, it probably should've been. The horse lay on its side, largely unmoving. It couldn't move. It's front legs'd been gnawed off, leaving just two bloody, sand-covered stumps.

   Nox stood over the steed and shook his head. “Who did this to you, boy?”

   The horse made a faint whiny in response. It tried to lift its head, to look towards that familiar, grit-filled voice, but it didn't have the energy for it. Some tribesfolk said you could commune with horses, learn their language. A skill like that would've been mighty useful right now. Instead, all the Coilhunter could do was keep on shaking his head.

   Nox got down on his haunches and rubbed the horse's neck. Old Reliable flinched a little. No doubt the last touch he felt was the bite. Right now, he was pretty much just waiting to die. Funny, that. Most folk didn't have to wait.

   “Where's your master?” Nox asked, trying to soften his voice. He knew this was the steed of that prospector-turned-drifter Thomas Oakley, better known as Chance Oakley, for all those second chances he gave. But where was he now? Nox hadn't seen him in a good three months. He couldn't help but muse that maybe this was that start of a bad three months for both of them.

   Nox took an eyeglass from a pouch on his belt, extended the barrel, and peered out into the distance. He hoped he'd find that grey-haired drifter, or some little dot on the horizon that might've been him. Surely he went for help. But there was no help out here. And there was no Oakley.

   “Can't imagine he'd just leave you like this,” Nox said. “Not him.” No. See, Oakley was a friend to horses, even if he didn't speak their tongue. There was a connection there, like the one between the biker gangs and
their bikes. Stronger, even. So, Oakley didn't leave willingly. The question was: why was he even out here in the first place? Was he looking for Nox? Or, was Nox looking for Oakley? Or was it all just a strange coincidence, like the puppetry of malignant gods? The only thing the Coilhunter knew for certain was the haze. The haze of the desert and the haze of his mind.

   Nox gave the horse a few final, gentle strokes. “There, there,” he said. “It'll be over soon.” He sometimes wondered if that was true. There were folk out there who seemed pretty convinced there was an afterlife, and some of them even thought it'd be a good one. So, they requested to be buried with the things they'd need there, like food or valuables. Nox thought it best that he be buried with his guns.

   Nox stood up and loosened one pistol from its holster. Old Reliable stirred from the sound. They didn't need to share a language to understand the moment, that dark, impending moment. They say there's a second sense for death, that you perk up your ear when you hear the Grim Reaper calling. Well, Nox was calling now, gun in hand, and he was grimmer still.

   He aimed the pistol at Old Reliable's head. He had to put that horse out of its misery. He couldn't help but wonder if someone would find him one day like this, helpless and dying. He'd rather be reliably dead.

   He cocked the hammer. Normally, he asked the criminals something now, like: Any last words? Oh, some of them had them alright. Nasty ones. Vulgar ones. And the gestures to go with them. The Coilhunter called that begging the trigger. It made it easy for him.

   But this wasn't easy. As much as he knew he needed to put Old Reliable out to pasture—wherever that was, what with the desert gnawing up those pastures too—he felt a reluctance in his fingers. A reluctance to kill. Maybe it was because of what Old Reliable meant to Oakley. Maybe it was because there just wasn't any fairness in this horse, once abused, then loved, dying like this.

   Whatever it was, it stopped him hitting the trigger for just long enough to hear something in the sand behind him. He turned sharply, spotting a black wolf stalking up to him, with blood still fresh on its tongue. A little behind, he saw the rest of the pack, moving in just as slowly. They came back for a feast, but they weren't expecting this second course.